praying for...

my cousin andrea, her husband dale and their daughter macy.  aren't they such a cute family?   one of my favorite things about being with them is that they laugh often and have fun.  andrea has been a big cousin, sister and friend to me.  i love that i can call her out-of-the-blue and ask her for advice.  since she is older she gets to walk through the hard bits of life before me and offer wisdom.  she was one of my bridesmaids and i can't imagine her not being a part of that day.  she also makes the best salad dressing on the planet.  as you can see from the pics above dale is fun!  he adds so much laughter and awesome family vacations to the mix.  he is a laid back kinda guy and i am happy to call him family.  and miss macy lives life to the fullest!  from karate to chess macy does it all. 


we are praying for wisdom as dale and andrea raise macy.  parenting dogs can be hard ( i speak from experiene) and i hear children are harder.  they have 2 dogs and 1 child so we are praying that they would continue to trust and seek the Lord in this challenging and rewarding role...mostly on the macy part.  we are also praying for macy as she grows in height and years.  we pray that she would seek to honor her parents and continue to keep that good head of hers on straight.  selfishly of course i am praying for more salad dressing and family vacations, individually-wrapped or a package deal, i'll take what i can get.    

praying for....

you may remember that we weekly draw a picture and pray for the people in the picture.  this week i grabbed this pic...

gianna, coco plum, laura and jess

this ladies are so special to me,  they have all counseled me during the dark seasons of life and have shared with me in the many joys of life too.  gianna was my first roommate, she can be trusted with any secret and is one of my first calls when life is hard.   in my phone she is listed under italian stallion because of her immense love for rocky and all 22 of his movies.  i always forget that she is under that name and when i go to call her it takes me a few seconds to find her number.  i know that i am with gianna i will have a good laugh and an entire bowl of brownie batter, with one egg, because we know how to compromise. 

laura is my sister though not my blood.   she is my example in so many ways.  laura wrote me a letter each week for the last 2 months before i got married.  they are treasured letters that house much wisdom.  laura taught me how to drive a standard car and how to sprout my own oats. 

jess is the sweetest friend. she is that friend that you can pick up with no matter where you have left off.  jess will always be honest, challenging and loving in our conversations.  we use to work together in a hospital and i have cleaned up more poo with that women than anyone.  that is a strong bond that cannot be broken.

what do all of these ladies have in common?  they are either about to have a baby or are already raising babies.  so our biggest prayer has been for them as they prepare or are already doing the hard work of motherhood.

speaking of mothers what are you doing for your mom on mother's day?

weekly prayer pic

i haven't ever posted one long blog entry about our wedding just snippets here and there.  here is another little bit for you.  for our wedding we decided that a guestbook was a waste of paper and that we wouldn't look through it more than once in our lives.  and don't you hate when you sign a card for a wedding and then you have to write another message in a guest book or on a picture frame?  anyone else feel that way?  no?  just me?   i am a grump.  so...anyway we decided to rent a photo booth to capture our guests but then as we looked at our budget we decided to toss it out.  my mom surprised us and hired a photo booth.  isn't she a sweet lady?  we didn't know what a huge success it would be!  we rented it during our family reception.  we had one large reception for the guests and another reception that followed for our close family and bridal party.  instead of twiddling their thumbs while we took pictures, guests sipped on lavender limeade and wore the photo booth out!  how posh and fun, right?  each time people took pictures, they got a strip of their photos and so did we.  one for me and one for my homies type of deal. 

the rental company offered to put them in a pretty album but i had a better idea.  i placed all the photo strips into a pretty glass vase.  this way we (or guests) can look through the photos and remember our fun day.  i love having picture out on display so they don't gather dust in a dark closet somewhere...although i have that going on too.

each week, we draw a photo strip and focus on praying for the people in the photo.  we just started it this week and we drew...

my cousin gary and his sweet wife kristin.  don't worry they didn't come dressed as a pirate and viking to the wedding, the photo booth came with props.  although with my family you could never be too sure, i wouldn't put it past them.  my favorite picture is the bottom one. 

not only is it great to think of family and friends more often and ways that we can pray for them but it is also fun for the hubs and i to talk about memories we have with family.

stay tuned...you could be next!